Today’s biggest SEO news is that numerically, the Internet has run out of IP addresses. The very last addresses were sold in February. And no, Al Gore had nothing to do with it this time either.
Have we broken the Internet? Hardly.
IPv6 will be enabled on Google, along with major companies like Facebook and Yahoo! for the next 24 hours. This will allow Internet service providers to test the readiness of a different format of IP addresses. The IP address we are all familiar with looks like this:
10.20.30.40
Behold! The new IP addresses will be similar to this – a mixed notation of hexadecimal digits (numbers and letters) separated by colons instead of dots:
2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334
Research shows that 99.95% of Internet users will be completely unaffected by this test. Google says that in very rare instances, users may experience connectivity issues due to misconfigured home computers. Many major companies, like Google, have supported IPv6 for years (since 2008) and have played an integral part of planning, conceptualizing and implementing this massive Internet overhaul.
So, what does this mean for you as an SEO manager? As part of a general account precaution, you should check your client’s site to ensure that they are IPv6 ready. Google provides a testing link to check site compatibility. Again, it will be extremely unlikely that this update will affect your client’s website; however, part of providing excellent SEO service is that you have a plan for everything! There are web administrators around the world who are providing updates of the testing progression as I write this… and the outcome is positive. So far so good, world. We are moving along nicely.
Felicia is an Account Executive at Hanapin Marketing, a search engine marketing firm focused on generating results through PPC and SEO.
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